Artificialized land and land take: Drivers, impacts and potential responses

As a major reservoir of biodiversity, soils are essential for many ecosystem services such as food production, climate regulation, flood mitigation, water quality and air quality. Considered as one of the main factors in erosion of the biodiversity, land take describes the global reduction in the proportion of land allocated to farming and forestry or to natural spaces. This work identifies the decisive economic and social factors in land take and its impact on the environment and agriculture. It carries out a summary of the state of knowledge – as complete as possible – of the determinants and impacts related to land take in France and attempts to identify policy tools through a multidisciplinary approach combining life sciences and economic sciences. It highlights the specific problems associated with this phenomenon.